NASA chief doubts he'll keep job when Bush leaves

NASA chief doubts he'll keep job during Obama administration

MARK CARREAU, Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle |
November 13, 2008

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA Administrator Michael Griffin told Kennedy Space Center workers on Thursday he doesn't expect to hold his post in the Obama administration, though he'd like to work for the new president with a larger budget to explore the moon and Mars with humans.

Griffin took over the space agency in April 2005, quickly becoming the chief architect of the Bush administration's strategy to retire the shuttle and return astronauts to the moon by 2020 with a new moonship and rocket, Orion and Ares.

Barack Obama , who will be sworn in on Jan. 20, has not indicated his choice for the top NASA job. During his campaign, the president-elect spoke of re-invigorating NASA by pursuing similar goals and increasing the agency's $17.5 billion a year budget.

"I serve at the pleasure of the next president," said Griffin, who joined workers at Kennedy for a question and answer session before the launching of the shuttle Endeavour .

"If the president wants to ask me to continue, I would be happy to do it," he told an anxious first questioner. "I doubt that will happen. I expect the new administration will have plenty of talent to choose from."

Endeavour is scheduled to lift off on a milestone mission to the international space station with seven astronauts Friday. A once doubtful weather outlook for the 6:55 p.m, CST, start of the 15-day flight turned more favorable Thursday.

Griffin, a blunt-spoken aeronautical engineer, told workers he believes NASA is on the correct course for the first time since the Apollo-era lunar missions came to an end more than 35 years ago. But he decried the lack of financial resources and insisted he was not interested in staying at NASA's helm unless he could choose his top associates.

"We are in a good policy direction right now," Griffin said. "NASA, in my view, for the first time since the Nixon administration, is doing the right things, and also doing things right."

He praised Obama's campaign pledge to add significant new funding to help close a gap between the shuttle's planned 2010 retirement and efforts to launch the Orion replacement on station missions in 2015,

"We certainly can't get by on any less than we are doing," said Griffin. "I certainly don't want to be a figure head for claiming we can do something we can't."

NASA does not deserve to be an afterthought with the new administration, he told colleagues. He praised President Bush for allowing him to recruit his inner circle from people with engineering as well as management skills.

"I didn't have anybody crammed down my throat. We have done that experiment at NASA — to see if people who don't know anything about the space business can run NASA," Griffin said. "It didn't work. I know how to fail. Just pick the wrong people, and you are doomed."

While he believes the shuttle should be retired soon, Griffin anticipates the winged ships to fly at least a few missions beyond the Bush-imposed retirement date. America must proceed with plans to launch astronauts on Russian spacecraft until it can begin Orion missions, he said.

While Griffin addressed workers, a group of scientists, engineers and some former astronauts led by the Pasadena, Calif.,-based Planetary Society gathered in Washington to urge changes in the Bush space strategy.

The "Roadmap to Space," urges the new administration and Congress to drop plans for a human lunar base in favor of a more robust effort to reach Mars with humans.

The roadmap calls on the new administration to enlarge NASA's circle of international partners, bring in China, India and Brazil among others.